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Arrays - EP Review: Motives

25 Aug 2017 // A review by rebelsoundradio
Well, the old adage goes “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. It’s a shame that no one expanded on this and added: “It’s at least ten times better when you do it with heavy riffs”.

Arrays is a one man effort with the emphasis being placed on recording on a budget. No flashy studio wizardry here, just good old Kiwi number eight wire mentality and hard graft using a simple home studio set up. From experience, I know that this can be a perilous task and can quickly evolve into sleepless nights adjusting compressors and searching for the perfect delay. Without vision and focus, you will start to resemble Tom Hanks marooned on a deserted island.

Getting straight into it with the lead track Centre of the Earth, I can tell that time has been spent in the right areas and great song writing has been married with a focused production effort. The guitar layers are sounding large and spacious, the rhythms are locking in and the vocals are present and clear with the right amount of weight and treatment.

I have heard worse “professional” recordings, I like the edge that these tracks have and the rawness that they possess. It’s refreshing to hear something that hasn’t had the life polished out of it.

My personal favourite track on the Motives EP is track 2 Grindstone, It’s a sinister sounding track with an addicting groove. The interplay between the guitar rhythm and the vocals in the verse attracts interest and is a nice point of difference. It’s a well arranged track where each section of the song is adding something different and the song contains a powerfully simple message.

All five tracks are good and the EP flows nicely from one track to the next, the vocal melodies are catchy are getting embedded in my mind after my third listen through. It is a solid effort, well tracked, mixed and mastered and sounds huge considering the relatively low cost set up.  

Good song writing aside - Arrays' strength is that it resides within a genre where you can get away with programmed drums and amp simulation as it is commonplace and still lends itself to the mix, in comparison, a country rock band is screwed if they want to sound epic on a budget...    

Within reason, I have always felt that production is subjective and we have become far too conditioned to a “polished” product. The devil really is in the detail and when it comes to good music, heart and soul always trumps splashing the cash.

 

Review by Jessie James.

 

About Arrays

Introducing Arrays, the creative sandbox of Auckland Musician/Producer JP Carroll.

For JP, music is an ache to soothe, and an itch to scratch. JP’s drive to create a breadth and depth of oeuvre has led him to become a student of recording and production techniques, as well as general industry knowledge, to allow his work to reach as many willing ears as possible.

JP’s production skills have earned him top 40 NZ Rock chart placements, as well as being anointed as ‘one to watch’ by the NZ Official Music Charts. The ultimate goal for JP is to be able to live sustainably from creating music, and Arrays serves as one such avenue to pursue this outcome.

Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Arrays

Releases

Patience Way
Year: 2022
Type: Album
Light Years
Year: 2020
Type: Album
Motives
Year: 2017
Type: EP

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